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Attentive to examine probable effects and consequences of acts with a view to avoid danger or misfortune; prudent; circumspect; wary; watchful; as, a cautious general. Cautious feeling for another's pain. Byron. Be swift to hear; but cautious of your tongue. Watts.

The voluntary surrender of a person's effects to his creditors to avoid imprisonment.

To toss up the head frequently, as a horse to avoid the restraint of the bridle.

Liberal in judging of others; disposed to look on the best side, and to avoid harsh judgment.

A void space; a gap or break, as in ranks of men. Memory . . . fills up the chasms of thought. Addison.

e skilled in chronology. That learned noise and dust of the chronologist is wholly to be avoided. Locke. THe most exact chronologers tell us that Christ was born in October, and not in December. John Knox.

row border of the first bearing remains visible; -- said of any heraldic bearing. Compare Voided.

lity, so far as concerns the party coerced. When the force is moral, then the act, though voidable, is imputable to the party doing it, unless he be so paralyzed by terror as to act convulsively. At the same time coercion is not negatived by the fact of submission under force. "Coactus volui" (I consented under compuls…

eatate, in which it is customary to privide that errors in description, etc., shall not avoid, but shall be the subject of compensation. Compensation balance, or Compensated balance, a kind of balance wheel for a timepiece. The rim is usually made of two different expansibility under changes of temperature, so arrange…

The adjustment of a debt, or avoidance of an obligation, by some form of compensation agreed on between the parties; also, the sum or amount of compensation agreed upon in the adjustment. Compositions for not taking the order of knighthood. Hallam. Cleared by composition with their creditors. Blackstone.…

Hollow; void of contents. [R.] As concave . . . as a worm-eaten nut. Shak.

pplies; an extrajudical confession may be explained or rebutted. Wharton. Confession and avoidance (Law), a mode of pleading in which the party confesses the facts as stated by his adversary, but alleges some new matter by way of avoiding the legal effect claimed for them. Mozley & W. Confession of faith, a formulary c…

A conveyance by which a voidable estate is made sure and not voliable, or by which a particular estate is increased; a contract, express or implied, by which a person makes that firm and binding which was before voidable.

Act of deliberating; deliberation; consultation. Satan . . . void of rest, His potentates to council called by night. Milton. O great in action and in council wise. Pope. Aulic council. See under Aulic. -- Cabinet council. See under Cabinet. -- City council, the legislative branch of a city government, usually consis…

A road that crosses another; an obscure road intersecting or avoiding the main road.

by a tube of the same material, and containing only a quantity of water and its vapor, devoid of air. The water is in one of the bulbs, and freezes when the other is cooled below 32º Fahr.

Any ornamental vessel used as a spittoon; hence, to avoid the common term, a spittoon of any sort.

i' th' dark. Shak. Till we perceive by our own understandings, we are as mucdark, and as void of knowledge, as before. Locke.

f a letter, of a will, of a deed, of a coin. etc. And bonds without a date, they say, are void. Dryden.

ndly and intemperate, they [peppers] will catch a blast; and then the seeds will be deaf, void, light, and naught. Holland. Deaf and dumb, without the sense of hearing or the faculty of speech. See Deaf-mute.